Times of Trial Chapter One excerpt

The digital clock’s timer went off at 6:30 a.m., and the radio started playing music. Greg woke up, since his dream was interrupted by the music, which was set to go off when the time came to wake up to go to school. He turned off the radio, wearily got out of bed, and went to the bathroom, which was attached to his room. He looked in the mirror to see that he was kind of scruffy looking this morning; his brown hair was pointing in all sorts of directions, his green eyes looked sleepy, and he really did need to shave. Greg hated shaving, but nobody wanted to see a seventeen-year-old with a beard, especially not his parents. After shaving, he climbed into the shower, taking about ten minutes to get clean.

Once he had on his t-shirt, socks, and blue jeans, he went to the kitchen for breakfast. He found his mom, Allison, and little sister at the table, eating their breakfast, while Dad was already at work, preparing for next Sunday’s sermon, since he’s the preacher of their church. “Good morning Mom and Alicia,”

“Good morning, my oldest son. Sleep well?”

“Yeah, but I keep having these dreams about a girl…”

“Are they naughty?” asked Alicia, who was near sixteen, a brunette, green eyes, 5’5”, and annoyed her brother a lot.

“Alicia!” exclaimed their Mom, who looked like a forty-year-old version of Alicia.

“Sorry Mom,” then she went back to eating her cereal, while listening to Mom and Greg talk.

“Is it the same one that you keep dreaming about? How often do you dream about her?” asked Mom.

“I think it’s the same one, but her face is always clouded, difficult to see, like she’s out of focus, but that’s really all I can remember. I guess I dream about her every few months since I turned sixteen,”

“Maybe you should start keeping a dream journal. Record your dreams the minute you wake up. Maybe you’ll get a lucid dream and you’ll be able to control what happens,” she suggested.

“A lucid dream? What’s that?”

“Well, from what I understand, your consciousness wakes up during the dream, so you know it’s a dream, and then you can start manipulating what happens. I’ve heard it takes a lot of practice.”

Greg retrieved his bowl, a spoon, and his cereal as he thought about it. As he was getting the milk, he asked, “You don’t think Satan’s messing with me, do you?”

“Why would he do that?”

Greg shrugged, “I don’t know. Maybe because he can?”

“I suggest praying about it if you’re unsure about what to do. God will give you an answer if you take care to listen to Him.”

“Ok.” Greg sat down at the kitchen table, bowed his head to pray, and silently began, <em>“Heavenly Father, thank you for this meal. Thank you for my parents, my sister, and the house we live in. Lord, I’m bothered by dreams I’ve having and I don’t know if it’s very Christian in nature. If these dreams are meant to lead me to some girl out there, then please help me to gain control of those dreams to find out who she is. Thank you and your will be done. In Jesus’ name, amen.”</em>

Greg and Alicia finished their breakfast and began getting ready for school. Greg was a senior, had his own car, which was used and needed a lot of work. He also worked at the local grocery store at night on the weekends as a grocery clerk. Alicia was in tenth grade, so she went to the same school now as her brother, for the first time since elementary school, which Greg didn’t particularly enjoy.

As they were on their way to school in Greg’s beat-up old 2011 Dodge Challenger, Alicia asked, “Do you think you know the girl in your dreams?”

“Naw, I don’t think so. Maybe she’s not real, but the dreams I have of her seem real enough to me. Only God knows if she is though,”

“Maybe you should do a dream journal like Mom suggested?”

“Yeah, maybe.” he answered with a shrug.

The two arrived at school a few minutes later. Greg parked his car in the usual spot, and the two made their way into Tucson High. At lunchtime, as Greg was approaching his locker, five guys approached him, and their leader blocked Greg’s way. He was the school’s biggest bully and the adults were too afraid to stop him. He sneered in Greg’s face, and said, “Hey, look, it’s the Jesus freak preacher’s kid. Don’tcha know you born again freaks are the minority? Why don’t all of you just disappear already? Oh, that’s right, your imaginary God doesn’t set a date. How convenient,”

“Leave me alone, Tony,”

“Or what?”

Greg really didn’t want to get into a fight with these guys, especially since he was outnumbered. So, he tried ignoring Tony and his goons by trying to open his locker.

“Come on, freak, you didn’t answer my question. Whatcha gonna do if I don’t leave you alone?” Tony then began to push Greg.

The other four guys began taunting Greg, while students began gathering to watch for a potential fight, and began the “fight” chant. Tony shoved Greg, this time it was hard enough to make him fall onto the floor.

“Come on, Jesus freak, hit me.”

Everyone could see that Greg was clearly getting angry, but no one knew what he was going to do. Most figured he would turn the other cheek like he always did, let Tony win, but for some reason, Greg continued to sit on the cold, hard floor, looking like he was about to boil over.

Tony was about to say something else, when Greg got up, and ran into Tony, looking like he had speared him in the way that some professional wrestlers do in their matches. Tony grunted as he hit the floor flat on his back, while Greg began wailing on him with his fists. The other four guys pulled Greg off of Tony less than a minute later and began to beat on him.

Shortly before this occurred, Alicia heard the commotion, and saw her brother was about to get into some trouble. So she ran to the principal’s office, and once in, she said to the secretary in an almost winded voice, “Tony and his goons are beating up my brother. You’ve got to stop them!”

“Ok, hold on, I’ll go talk to Mr. Martinez.”

“Hurry!”

A minute or two later, Mr. Martinez, a man who was nearing retirement age and had ran out patience with students long ago, came out of the office, and said, “Ok young lady, show me where this fight is occurring.”

They arrived to see that the five guys were kicking Greg, who was clearly bleeding while curled up in the fetal position. Mr. Martinez shouted, “What in Sam Hill is going on here?”

The students, who surrounded the fight, scattered towards their classrooms, while Tony and his associates stumbled backwards away from Greg. Greg was slow to get up, since he was in obvious pain.